Meet the Goodwin Project

I tripped and fell hard over these folks while researching farmer's markets on the North Shore.



To be honest I have mixed feelings about rejecting society and choosing a nomadic existence (where children are concerned), but I have enormous respect for the intention...the desire for a mindful and spiritual existence. Do I think "society" offers that? Definitely not.



I did my own version of dropping out in my late teens; following the Grateful Dead, hanging out on a commune, living in an Airstream on a bluff overlooking the Lost Coast (on a Native American burial ground no less), making pita in a wood burning stove, and studying midwifery. In my experience many get lost living like this; few find themselves.

Regardless, I felt some major soul-ache looking at these graceful and lovely people. It was a little bit like looking at what could have been and almost was.



Especially if you've never had the chance to shake free of the heavy responsibilities and demands of this system, I know that this kind of life can hold enormous appeal. Just read their compelling bios and tell me you don't want to know more:

"Aamion was bare handing prawns from a clear creek in Namuamua Village, Fiji, before he could talk. His vagabond dad made home not in one place, but amid a seasonal passage to outposts in New Zealand, Kauai, and Fiji. He is as much a son of nowhere as he is comfortable everywhere. Work and play are blurred for him, and done hard especially now that he and wife Daize have added a second child, True, to the brood.

Daize attracts people wherever she goes, for something more than her sunny magnetism. Whether noseriding over piercing reef or navigating a varied upbringing she got through unscathed. As a teen she was the face of Roxy, an icon in the rise of women’s surfing, and longboarding world champion twice. Through her resourceful creativity Daize has manifested a blessed life. Trolling the Hanalei farmer’s market for tasty mangoes so her kids don't crave candy, she’s a happy, purposeful mother who knows the earth provides.

Aamion is proof that the ocean does too, whether riding big barrels to the podium in the Volcom Pipeline Pro on Oahu’s North Shore, or landing a monster dog tooth tuna with spear while no one is watching. He intuits the less you say, the more people listen, and their son Given, 3, learns this first hand. The unassuming words from Given’s gravelly throat offer clues to his atypical worldview. The Goodwins drop into the bigger waves in life with clear eyes, setting up for the high line."



Do you have a secret (or not so secret) drop-out dream? What does it look like? Farm? Yurt? Costa Rica jungle?

Would you ever go "off the grid" with children?

UPDATE:

Their movie teaser is just shimmering with life...the millisecond-long birth scene had me crying, and I am so looking forward to the full-length movie. Try not to be so jaded, all you naysayers!





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